Ads.txt is an initiative the IAB Tech Lab launched earlier this year to ensure greater transparency in the programmatic marketplace by creating a record of who is authorized to sell or re-sell ad inventory. The top aim of Ads.txt is to crack down on domain spoofing, a widespread, wily and…
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Between the IAB’s OpenData initiative, the LiveRamp/AppNexus-led data consortium, and a few other long-simmering initiatives (think DigiTrust), now is a great time for anyone who’s been championing data transparency. Whether these efforts are bearing fruit—that is to say, if they’re actually translating to more utility in sharing and processing data,…
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First Apple came for our headphone jacks. Then they came for our first-party cookies. All right, it’s not that simple, but Apple’s updated cookie policy for its Safari browser feels like the company is twisting the knife a few more degrees, making its own rules without making any real concessions…
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With all the hubbub about first-price auctions taking over the real-time bidding ecosystem, I don’t think there’s been enough talk about why the second-price auction is currently the standard bearer. That’s why I was exhilarated when Univision’s Eyal Ebel brought the point up at our recent Meetup on the current…
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I returned from an excellent Publisher Forum in Montreal to hear that Mic was laying off part of its editorial staff and re-focusing on creating video content—mainly to grab the sweet CPMs the come with monetizing video. I feel like I’ve heard this story many times in the last few…
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(While it's fun to journey to the past... Why not sign up for the next PubForum, November 2017 in Nashville?) The AdMonsters team has successfully made it to Montreal for the 42nd Publisher Forum--which means as much as any of us has misbehaved in the past, evidently it wasn't incriminating…
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Better Ads Standards are an initiative for promoting “acceptable” ad experiences for users, while discouraging disruptive ads. The overall goal, as stated, has been to keep the spread of ad blocking tools at bay, by assuring the ads in the ecosystem are not so annoying they drive users to start…
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There are few topics getting digital publishers chattering right now quite like header bidding. In a marketplace where many publishers long perceived buyers as having the upper hand, header bidding pits demand sources against each other, giving publishers a clearer idea of the true value of their inventory and how…
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Through header bidding, publishers aren’t just seeing more revenue from their demand partners--they’re also seeing seeing huge amounts of data. The problem is, that data isn’t always clearly understandable, and isn’t always easy to take action on it. At times, it’s not even clear where pubs should look to find…
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Earlier in 2017, savvy publishers and platforms started noticing a gnarly new breed of mobile redirects, one that’s particularly evasive to common-practice malware prevention methods. It’s a new page in the standard playbook malvertisers long ago developed to skirt around the watchdogs in the ad ecosystem, one that allows them…
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